


Somewhere A Clock is Ticking

by noncorporealform



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:31:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1433584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noncorporealform/pseuds/noncorporealform
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody knows war is coming, and all they have is each other. Takes place before Captain America: The First Avenger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere A Clock is Ticking

Bucky usually slept on the couch cushions in Steve’s apartment when he came over, and Steve stayed in his room. The lights from the factory yard, always on at night, would pour in through the windows that had no curtains. There was a clock on a shelf with a pendulum that knocked back and forth. It kept Bucky awake. He never told Steve that, though. So he listened to the ticking until he was too exhausted to care about light and sound. The poor kid apartments in Brooklyn had quite a few things in common. Everything was kind of brown, everyone had the toaster you had to watch so it didn’t set fire to everything, the same ironing board they must sell exclusively to landlords, but Bucky had always been glad his folks had never once bought a clock. 

But that day, and late that night, they couldn’t quite get themselves to part. They were glued to the sound of the radio in the corner of the living room, and going anywhere farther than the kitchen would have cut off the voices. 

Night came and sound died outside. The radio in the corner was still on, less volume now that the shut-in next-door neighbor had complained that people were trying to sleep. The Germans had invaded Poland and the news broke. There would be little updates in the broadcasts, but they had to wait between shows, and every time before the evening news there would be more to the story. So many countries had signed treaties. 

“Something’s gonna happen, isn’t it?” Steve said as the broadcasters said goodnight and he turned off the switch for the first time all day.

The sound of the clock started up again. The knock of the little pendulum ticked away. Bucky wanted to throw it out the window.

“Why are you worried about it?” Bucky asked. “That’s way over there.”

“Yeah, but—,” Steve’s words trailed off. 

He shrugged. That was all Steve had to do, and Bucky knew. War had gotten his father, and Bucky knew he was thinking about other people. He always did that first. He could see Steve begin to calculate all the other people who would lose their dads, the dads that wouldn’t get to see their kids again.

While Steve was thinking about people he didn’t even know, Bucky was thinking about Steve. This 95 pound kid, nothing left but himself and his apartment, and he’d be left alone. He had the same bony knees and crappy lungs he’d always had. No way would the army take him. Because Bucky already knew he’d enlist. He hated himself, but he was going to do it. He was going to leave this kid, but what else could he do?

“Come on,” Bucky said. He patted the burlap-like fabric of the cushion next to him. He’d already laid them out on the floor where he was going to crash. 

Steve plopped down on the cushion next to him. 

“It’s not like it’s going to happen,” Bucky said. “Nobody wants it. And if it does, it’ll be over—”

“Before Christmas,” Steve finished for him.

The echo of the lie given to their fathers reverberated out of the past and through them. Would have been less of a shake if someone had banged a gong right next to them.

“Why don’t we both sleep in here tonight,” Bucky said. 

“Bucky,” Steve said, laughing. “We’re not eleven anymore. We have to start acting like men at some point. Besides, I’ll be fine, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I was kind of thinking about myself. I don’t think I’m gonna sleep at all tonight. I just want some company.”

Steve dropped his head and laughed through his nose. 

“Yeah, okay. Do you want me to turn the radio back on? They play music for another hour if you want to.”

“I can’t listen to the box anymore.”

They sat in silence for a long time after that. They did that a lot. A few people, friends of Bucky’s that didn’t know Steve, would sometimes see them sitting in a diner not talking or looking at each other. They’d ask what the fight was about. They both laughed every time and look at each other. They didn’t have to say that they didn’t have to talk all the time. It was good sometimes to just shut up. 

“You think there’s any way I could enlist at all,” Steve began after a full five minutes of nothing. “I mean, if I could convince them—”

“You can’t,” Bucky said. 

Steve looked right at him, had heard it in his voice, and Bucky heard it too. Bucky thought saying it would sound dismissive, but it was just desperate. It dripped out of him like a damp washcloth twisted to get those last few drops out.

Bucky laughed and he had a scimitar grin that came with it. He put his arm around Steve. He realized he’d had his arm around girls with broader shoulders. He pulled him to his side firmly, but somewhere in the back of his mind he felt himself worry about breaking him.

“I am gonna go, though,” Steve said. “Somehow. I gotta.”

Their legs were stretched out on the hardwood in front of them. Steve was barefoot, but Bucky had somehow managed to keep his boots on all day. Some of the slats were starting to come up. It was the weather. They’d come up during summer with all the humidity. Bucky tripped a lot. Steve never did. This was his place. He owned almost nothing in it. A few old soldier’s things, his father’s, metals and military gear that doubled as apartment furniture. His mom’s things, all practical furniture, blankets, and cookware. But photos, a lot of photos. Those were framed lovingly, with artistic touches and hand-written cards from years ago still propped open on the tables so you could see what was written inside. But nothing that was really this belongs to Steve Rogers. There was nothing there couldn’t be put in a storage locker for a long tour.

“What if you find a girl?” Bucky asked. “You’d stay if you had a girl at home.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. His voice deepened as his sarcasm kicked in. “I’ll just go to the next church dance and see if anybody will look down by chance to check their shoes and finally see me.”

“I can show you how to get a girl to notice you.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.”

“Finally ready to spill your secrets?”

“I might as well have an apprentice. So first thing is just to act like you’re not actually terrified. They get weirded out by the awkward guys. Gives off a feel like they got something to be ashamed about running around in the upstairs apartment.”

“Okay.”

“When they let you get close, you see if they mind an arm, like I got around you right now.”

“Isn’t that a little unwelcome, though? I mean, I know you.”

“Well you don’t do it right away. I mean, talk, like you would to a friend. Just pretend she’s me. You know how to talk to me. Then once you got an arm around, it’s easy. You just lean in and see if she’s keen.”

Bucky leaned in, his head tilted, their mouths nearly touching. He heard Steve’s sharp intake of breath before he laughed and turned his head away.

“I don’t actually think any girl would like that,” Steve said.

“You kissed anyone between the last time we saw each other and today?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah, right.”

“You need to practice before you find Mrs. Right.”

“Are you going to drag me out to some dance hall again? That never exactly is the funnest for me, Buck.”

“We don’t need to find a girl. I’m right here.”

“I don’t--,” Steve began, but it was cut off when Bucky leaned into him and pressed their mouths together. 

Bucky felt like a hand had grabbed his heart. He’d done it, he’d kissed him, but it was like he’d had someone in the back of his mind, someone with his same voice and face, egging him on to do it. He was still. He never kissed like this, completely frozen, his mouth pressed firmly against someone else’s. He was waiting for some sign that Steve liked this, but Steve was frozen, too. 

Just as he was certain he’d have to think of some joke, something to cover himself, Steve’s hand came up and grasped his neck. He was kissing back. 

Steve was awful at it. Bucky smiled as Steve struggled to find the rhythm of it. Bucky treated it like a dance he was teaching someone just by feeling. He led, and Steve would certainly follow. He opened his mouth, so did Steve. He alternated between long and short, and so did Steve. 

Tongue though, that was a bit much. When Steve pulled away, Bucky kicked himself. It was too soon, he knew it, but he’d wanted it.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff you still gotta learn,” Bucky said, and he felt himself grin at Steve’s expense even as a voice inside his head called him a moron.

“I, uh,” Steve began, and then he swallowed his kiss-swollen lips until his mouth was a thin line.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it? It’s just a kiss. Nothing to it.”

“Does that even count?”

“Do you want it to?”

Steve’s eyes had the kind of clarity Bucky’d always envied. It was the look he got when he was sure of something, really sure. That was when Bucky knew he’d done something really stupid. Because Steve pulled him back in, and Steve was already better at kissing. Steep learning curve. 

Minutes later Steve was lying down on his back, said it felt right that way. When Steve pulled Bucky down on top of him by his suspenders, that was when Bucky knew he wasn’t really calling the shots anymore. That was good. Whatever Steve wanted, Bucky wanted to give it to him. Completely. There were some days Bucky was sure if Steve asked him to jump into a bonfire, he’d do it. Mostly he’d do it because Steve would never ask him to jump into a bonfire.

He heard his own voice calling him a moron again right as he slid his hands over the front of Steve’s trousers. Steve’s breath hitched and he exhaled into Bucky’s face, breaking the kiss.

“Is that good?” Bucky asked. “Do you like that?”

“Yeah. Good. That’s—good.”

Bucky looked up at Steve each time he went a little further. Started unbuttoning the front of his trousers, looked up, Steve nodded. It was ok. Pulled them down a bit, a nod. Held on to the waist of his boxers. Steve reached down, grabbed Bucky’s hand. 

He was ready to screech to a halt, to let this go, no matter how much he wanted this. Bucky thought he knew which way this was about to go. And then Steve helped him pull them down, his clothes tangling about his thighs. 

He kissed Steve on the cheek and then down to the jaw and the neck as he put his hand between Steve’s legs. He was going by touch and sound because if he opened his eyes he would break open the dream and find himself alone in his own place with a sad wetness in his pajamas. 

“Do you like that?” he’d ask, his hand made strokes, up and down. And he asked again as he went lower. But then he extended a finger and brought it far back and Steve jumped.

“No. Not that,” he said. 

“Shit. I’m sorry,” Bucky said. 

“It’s okay, I just—”

“That’s weird, I’m an idiot.”

“It’s not, I just—Bucky, do you like girls? I mean, it’s fine if you don’t. I just—”

“I—of course I like girls. I just want you to be good at this.”

“I mean it’s just—there’s not a whole lot you’re showing me that’s relevant. You know. To girls.” 

The voice in Bucky’s head was keen to call him a moron again. He stammered as he tried to put something together, but he knew his face was an open book. He’d been caught, and his eyes were big. He knew he looked as scared as he felt.

“I like girls…too,” Bucky finally said.

“Yeah, me too,” Steve answered. “I kinda like this too, I think.”

Fear makes people do stupid things. Bucky had always thought that was a cliché, but as soon as he opened his mouth he swore never to say things when he was scared, not ever again. 

“I love you, Steve,” he said.

Steve’s face broke into a laugh, and Bucky’s broke into sorrow. He’d made a mistake. He’d smiled as he’d said it, unable to resist curving his lips up. He’d said it like it was a joke, a line out of a movie. Of all the times for Steve not to see him, not to know what he was looking at.

“Yeah,” Steve said. Just that little word, said like that. Like it was the most ridiculous suggestion in the world. 

Bucky knew the world was about to change. They said it on the radio. And the two of them, they wouldn’t be the same. They were gonna be men, and Bucky would enlist, and these little private moments, those would never come back again. 

But he had him, just this one time. They could be fumbling boys grasping at each other like idiots in the here and now, and they might as well be those kids as long as they could. 

Bucky cursed himself for the boots he’d never taken off. It would be awkward, but he decided just to unbutton the front of his trousers and pull himself out of his underwear. He collapsed on top of Steve with no art or airs, just moving the way he realized Steve liked. He listened to his gasps and moans and those guided them both. Steve’s skin was hot to the touch after he came, and the slight sound of wheezing from his throat, a sign that his asthma was kicking in just from this, made Bucky want to die.

They laid half on the couch cushions, half on the hardwood after, just listening to the sounds of the apartment at night. There was something rummaging in the trash outside; someone was having a conversation under them; an argument echoed from somewhere across the way. And then there it was. The ticking. He hadn’t heard it until just then. 

“That stupid clock,” Bucky murmured, believing he was only thinking it in his head.

“I hate that clock,” Steve said. 

Bucky opened one eye and stared at Steve, whose eyes were closed, long lashes lying on his cheek. Bucky smiled and something deep in him felt like it had been pierced with a needle. 

Steve got up without another word. He reached up to the tall shelf, pulled it down and a few books collapsed where the clock had been acting as a bookend. He opened the back and pulled a pin out and the gears stopped turning.


End file.
